AWFUL

I read this awful news today and so forgive me for using it as a reality check to measure the paranoia of anti-smokers.

They haven't yet got their way on a car smoke ban for the sake of the "chiiildren" but they are pushing ever further with the excuse that smoking in cars kills (insert massive number for dramatic and persuasive affect) each year.

The awful truth is that driving cars is far more risky than smoking in them as the tragic story above shows. Should we, therefore, be tarred as child abusers because we smoke in them? Are we child abusers because we don't choose safer modes of transport like walking, flying, or taking the train?

Each time we get in our vehicles and set off an a journey we are putting our lives and those of our children in danger . Even if we take the greatest care.

The smoking in cars issue should be put into perspective. Most parents err on the side of good manners when children are present. Most of mine have never minded my smoking with the window open - I've asked them. Daughter number one did. She's always hated smoking. She's very tolerant. I'm very polite. We don't have a problem.

In wider society, this used to be called good manners and tolerance and we worked it out between us to the benefits of both sides.

We didn't throw public money legalised discrimination, humiliation dehumanisation and denormalisation to take sides.

What we're paying for in anti-smoker costs panders to hysteria. Their claim that smoking should be banned in cars, and in the home, defies logic and encourages prejudices. It doesn't save lives. Second hand smoke does not kill.

There are greater causes than the anti-smoking issue to fight and real tragedies that deserve our sympathy.

The calls for a smoking ban in cars, in more public places and even people's homes is not about health. It's about spite, hate, prejudice, and paranoid fear.

Will this coalition government continue to waste money on the non-health issue or will it begin to invest in some of those really expensive projects like Hobhole Drain that really would benefit the public and really save lives?

Why am I not hopeful that this trendy NuGovt will get it's priorities right?


UPDATE
The awful story above about the new born baby orphaned when her parents died in a car accident just gets worse

THE HIDDEN TRUTH ABOUT SMOKING

Author Rich White scrutinises the tobacco related health myth in his new book Smoke Screens, The Truth About Tobacco, which is released next week.

Rich's detailed research retraces the steps of the anti-smoking movement and analyses its often outrageous, and inflated, claims about tobacco.

The book looks at smoking related diseases and what actually causes them and how tobacco was exploited as a cause all because of the massive amount of funding being thrown in by Big Pharma to "prove" how dangerous it was.

What is often now referred to as the evil weed, had humble, medicinal roots, and was used by Native Americans to treat many ailments. Up until 30 years ago, it was recomended by GPs, and Rich's own granny was told to smoke when pregnant on doctor's orders. The accusation that tobacco kills millions, is explored, and how this simple plant became so controversial is explained.

"The sad truth is that because the mantra of smoking being harmful has been repeated so many times people now just accept it without question or research. However, misinformation or a lie told over and over is still wrong; never will mere repetition make something true," he said.

Rich, who gets no funding from any tobacco firm, or tobacco related industry, has shown that the time has come to find out just where the truth does lie. The fanatical whisper that became a roar because of personal prejudices and big money is about to be exposed.

http://www.smokescreens.org/